


spilt all of the ink, like blue absolution

by PaxDuane



Series: lift your glasses full of sunshine [3]
Category: Star Wars Legends - All Media Types, Star Wars Prequel Trilogy
Genre: AU Malevolence Arc, Chalactan heritage Fetts, Communication, Developing Relationship, Getting Together, Grief/Mourning, M/M, Pre-Relationship, Regret, brief Boba Fett, brief Sar Labooda
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-06
Updated: 2021-02-06
Packaged: 2021-03-18 11:15:07
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,658
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29242674
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/PaxDuane/pseuds/PaxDuane
Summary: Island of Lost Thingsby Molly ofGeographyWar will always bring hard decisions and hard lessons, but sometimes the breaking point leads to something a little softer, something a little brighter.Jango just didn't expect Alpha-17 to be bringing him along.
Relationships: Alpha-17/Jango Fett
Series: lift your glasses full of sunshine [3]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2144181
Comments: 6
Kudos: 21





	spilt all of the ink, like blue absolution

**Author's Note:**

> [Theme song uwu](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nl2r4STxJ7A)

The galaxy ticks by with cracks and pops, with the falling of a hammer on an anvil and the snapping of a forge fire.

Jango hears the hammer, hears the _ting ting_ of blades and armor being forged, and he’s here to do that work. Instead of with a hammer, though, he builds these things with curriculum, instruction, and policy. Often, the _ting_ _ting_ comes from his stylus against his tablet.

He can hold his own, still, but he can feel his joints and tendons aching more and more as he has to spend more and more time cooped up working on paperwork and grading. He’s liable to join the 12s on their run tomorrow, just to get out for a bit.

There’s a knock, on the open door of his office, and he looks up.

The clone is one of the older batches, with ARC armor and a blue kama longer than regulation. He could smile, if he wasn’t so tired. “Seventeen, what brings you back to Kamino?” He lets the Alpha class clone, one of his _first students_ that have felt so far away these last months, reach out and help him get himself up.

“Bajir, I...” Seventeen, the one he taught up, was never hesitant. He does not take rattling breaths. “I asked to come tell you.”

“Tell me what?” he asks, dread collecting in the pit of his stomach.

“The...The Confidence experiment. The battalion integrated with the nat’born legion. We lost contact fives days ago. I was going to come, just for that, but today we got confirmation that the wreck of their craft was found. The escape pods had been cracked open, and.”

Jango catches Seventeen by the biceps. “Udesii, vod,” he murmurs, pulling Seventeen, steady, earnest Seventeen, into a Keldabe.

“I signed off on it. I was the last signature,” Seventeen says. He doesn’t cry, though Jango desperately wishes he would.

“It was not your fault,” Jango reminds him, gruff, clasps his hand on the back of his neck. “It’s war; it was not your fault.”

“They could have stayed as strike teams, as spec ops, but I signed off to integrate them with the bigger GAR, _I signed their death warrants_ , Bajir.”

“Then I’m just as culpable,” Jango snaps, can’t help it, he’s too tired and this bright child turned bright young man, this verd that he taught up is grieving and he is too. “I took the contract to do this, to be the template and to teach you.”

“You didn’t—.” Seventeen pulls back looking gutted. “No, you didn’t...”

“More than them have died,” Jango reminds him, looks at him and those two inches that his current students won’t have on him. “You did not kill them, Seventeen.”

There’s a fissure, a crack, and Jango does him the favor of pulling him in for an embrace, tucking his crumbling face into his neck before the first sob even slips out.

Jango holds him as he cries, this alor’ika he trained who didn’t cry in front of him again since the first of his brothers died. He holds him as he shakes apart and puts himself back together, takes a tissue from Jango’s desk because very few of the clones are like him and wipes his face then just stares at Jango.

He almost looks ready to cry again, and Jango’s about to reach out again, when he says, “I love you.”

Jango—.

He—.

“I’m not—.”

“Not. Not like a buir, Bajir.” Seventeen ducks his head. “ _Ni ceta_ , I shouldn’t have...”

Before he can turn, turn and flee and not explain, not just karking _explain_ what he meant, Jango catches him again by the arm. “Seventeen.”

"Ni kartayli gar, jorcu gar shi gar," Seventeen’s voice breaks and he reaches to clutch at Jango's wrists, "Ni ori’copaani gar, par ner riduur, meh gar ori’copaani balyc.”

Jango stares—he can’t not because what else is he going to do. He can’t—what can he say to that?

Seventeen pulls back, flinches back, but Jango follows and cups his face.

He opens his mouth, but nothing comes out until finally... “You’re upset. You’ve been travelling, and worrying; you need to sleep before you tell me these things.”

Jango gets Seventeen to one of the barracks where visiting command stay then disappears back to his own apartment.

Boba is chattering with Sar on the comm while he makes seaweed pancakes, Chalactani warming the space, with bits of Concordian and Mando’a filling spots, but Sar grew up with him and they speak the same languages; she’s well used to it.

“Hello, Tati and Bo’ka,” Jango greets, dropping a kiss on Boba’s curls.

“Su cuy, Buir,” Boba replies cheerfully. “Ba’tat was going over homework with me.”

“Jate.” He pauses, wonders if Sar has heard. “Sar, I heard about the Confidence today.”

There’s a hitch of breath, a sigh. “Alpha insisted you should be told in person.”

“Probably for the best.” He files the name away; it must be what people have taken to calling Seventeen and it’s somewhere between amusing and concerning. “How are things holding up on your end?”

Sar’s next breath is shaky. “We’re holding up. The GAR is in an uproar, between the mystery weapon and the clone regiments arguing over whether or not this is a sign to not integrate large numbers.”

Jango sighs. “It may be flawed logic, but I understand.” He pauses, scrubs a hand through Boba’s curls. “I’m going to sleep early tonight,” he adds, quiet.

Boba looks up, concerned. “Okay. Do you want me to put some of the pancakes in the chiller?”

“No, it’s fine, I’ll pull something together later,” he says. One more kiss on his son’s head, goodbye/goodnights to both him and Sar, then he slips back into his room.

He doesn’t fall asleep quickly, of course, because he’s thinking. About the Confidence, of course, but eventually his mind drifts to Seventeen’s confession.

He’d never thought of any of the clones that way; he was their teacher. But Seventeen hadn’t been his student, truly for nearly a year. And before that, he’d been overseeing the Alphas beginning to train others. Honestly, he was hopeful he could get some of them back, to replace some of the trainers he was losing patience with, especially as some of the military brass had made noise about asking him to take over a part of the academy the last time they were around.

Seventeen had always been stubborn, stalwart, and earnest. And Jango would be remiss to not think about how the added height of the Alphas, plus the bulk that Seventeen, and a handful of the others put on, is attractive to him. And war has changed him.

He shoves a hand over his eyes and tries to imagine it, of making room for Seventeen in his space and is life. Of Seventeen arguing playfully with Boba, and being taught to cook Chalactan sit down meals by Depa and Sar instead of just the campfire ones from training, and discussing plays with Mace.

And then he tries to imagine falling into bed with him, and he has to get himself off the bed and into the shower.

Yes, he supposes, under the cool spray of water. Yes, if Seventeen isn’t just high on grief and desperation, he would be interested.

He sleeps, and he wakes in the middle of the night to eat cereal before passing out again. He’s tired—it’s like the work is never done. No matter how much he sleeps, no matter how much caff he ingests, he’s still tired by the time his eyes hit the stacks of flimsiwork.

He sends Boba off to learn with the 11s and heads off to monitor his class of 12s during bookwork. He manages to wave off the command student he usually has monitor their laps and joins them, like he’d wanted to, but it means he’s expecting a backlog once he’s back in the office.

But there’s not. Seventeen is sitting at his desk, working through it. He grunts when Jango comes in.

“They’re overworking you,” he grumbles, setting down a stylus.

Jango sighs. “It’s nothing new.”

Seventeen’s gaze sharpens on him and the younger man stands, towering over Jango with just those couple of inches. Then, as he takes Jango’s hands and brings them to his lips, it softens. “You need help, Bajir.”

Jango huffs. “You’re not here to do my paperwork, _Alpha_ ,” it comes out harsher than he meant; he’s too tired.

Seventeen’s expression falters. “Bajir—.”

“What? What’s so important? You delivered your news, what’s so...”

Seventeen kisses him, open mouthed and soft. He kisses him and he presses him back into the door of his own office, pinning his wrists. “I love you,” Seventeen says again. It’s level, this time. “Ni kartayli gar, jorcu gar shi gar. Ni copaani gar, par ner riduur, _meh gar copaani balyc_.”

Jango leans up to press their foreheads together, takes a few breaths in Keldabe with him, before he says, “Copaani balyc.”

Seventeen traces patterns into his skin, still so bright and alert. “You need help, and it looks like most of the other trainers aren’t doing anything.”

Jango grunts, face shoved into the side of the younger man’s hip, arm tossed across his thighs. “It’s workable.”

“Let me get a couple of the other Alphas together—some of us...some of us are better served building up the new batches.”

Jango’s fingers clinch, digging his blunt nails into Seventeen’s thigh. “It wasn’t your fault.”

Seventeen hums, still doesn’t believe it. “I don’t trust my own judgement about the front, anymore. I know what makes a soldier, though. What makes a good one, even. If they’d had me fighting, maybe it would have been better.”

“Alvha—.”

Seventeen quells him with a look and a hoarse, “ _Alor_.”

He huffs. “I reserve the right to veto whoever you choose.”

“Of course; I wouldn’t have it any other way.”

**Author's Note:**

> Language notes:  
> Bajir -- my rough approximation of "teacher/trainer"  
> “Ni kartayli gar, jorcu gar shi gar. Ni copaani gar, par ner riduur, meh gar copaani balyc.” -- This came from some help from friends.   
> - **"Ni kartayli gar, jorcu gar shi gar."** _I hold you in my heart because you are simply you._ From littlekaracan's |to speak of precious evenings| which I have not read but am told is good.  
> - **"Ni copaani gar, par ner riduur, meh gar copaani balyc."** _I want you, for my partner, if you also want me._ In the earlier instance, tinged with desperation and grief, Alvha says "ori'copaani" which is closer to _need_ on its way towards obsession and possession. Thank you to TheAceApples for doing this usually while my brain was broken late at night.  
> "Copaani balyc," of course, in this case, means "I also want you."  
> Alvha -- so it turns out the Mando'a noises closest to what Basic speakers would initially hear as "Alpha" come out to something that approximates to "homeland" and I just think that's neat.  
> Alor -- General/Leader. See General Notes.
> 
> General Notes:  
> I finally did a do on this pairing I'm happy with!!! The bastards.
> 
> So I was talking with a friend about the clones calling Jango "Bajir." I feel like the other Mando trainers call him "'Alor" for Mand'alor, but to the clones they've only really known him as "Bajir'alor" aka "Head Teacher/Trainer". The Alphas especially shorten this to "Bajir" but neither he or Alvha have a teacher-student kink. They _do_ both have an authority kink, though, so calling each other by rank is fine. While Alvha probably still defaults to "Bajir" when they're both teaching, "'Alor" is for when he wants to get his way ~~usually in regard to Jango's health~~ because _bedroom_.
> 
> Another thing about this is that I decided with some friends that, like. Jango was raised by a scholar. He has no idea that normal military training _doesn't_ include a bunch of humanities units with literature studies. And thus, _neither do any of the Alpha class or any other class he trains directly_. Everyone else gets at least some grumbling trainers who have no idea what their cadets are studying. Anyways, Alvha wouldn't say he likes poetry if asked but like. He does. A lot.


End file.
